Scaling financial services with a strategic automation foundation

In the financial services industry, standing still is equivalent to falling behind. As VyStar Credit Union approached the $14 billion asset mark, it faced a pivotal crossroads: The organization had to maintain its growth while meeting the rigorous compliance and delivery demands of a highly regulated industry.

Breaking the cycle of manual processes

VyStar’s growth had historically been supported by manual efforts that worked well but were becoming increasingly difficult to sustain as the organization scaled. To match the customer experience offered by its competitors, VyStar needed to modernize its backend infrastructure.

The required automation capabilities were highly specialized and not broadly available in the local market. They needed a solution that was powerful yet accessible: A platform that could bridge the gap between complex legacy systems and a cloud-ready future.

Choosing a strategic partner, not just a tool

After evaluating several vendors, VyStar selected Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform as its enterprise standard. The ease of use and powerful, agentless architecture made it the clear choice.

Beyond the technology itself, support provided by the Red Hat team was crucial to the success of their automation implementation. Early collaboration helped VyStar align its strategy, starting with network automation and extending toward a long-term, hybrid cloud environment.

Building a strategic automation foundation

VyStar didn't just implement an automation tool; they integrated automation into the core of their operations. By connecting Ansible Automation Platform with ServiceNow, they established a single source of truth for all automated actions.

1. Eliminating manual toil in branch operations

With over 79 full-service branches and 19 high school branches, routine diagnostics were once a resource-heavy task for the network team. By automating network health checks and reporting through Ansible Automation Platform, VyStar now saves between 2,300 and 2,800 hours annually. This reclaimed time allows engineers to focus on high-value architecture projects rather than repetitive troubleshooting.

2. Strengthening governance with automated checkpoints

In a highly regulated financial industry, speed must be balanced with precision and compliance. VyStar implemented automated governance by linking Ansible Automation Platform to its ServiceNow change management process. Every production deployment is now automatically verified against an approved change request. If the data doesn't match, the process stops, so that every action is compliant, authorized, and fully auditable.

3. Real-time visibility across the hybrid cloud

Maintaining an accurate inventory in a hybrid cloud environment is a common pain point. VyStar intends to address this by using the Ansible Automation Platform to synchronize Microsoft Azure resources directly into its ServiceNow Configuration Management Database (CMDB). This self-updating inventory will give the IT team a single, reliable view of assets and help reduce the risks associated with shadow IT.

4. The path to "push-button" infrastructure

VyStar continues to advance how infrastructure and application delivery work together. By using Terraform for initial provisioning and Ansible Automation Platform for configuration and application layering, they are moving toward a unified deployment model. This "best-of-both-worlds" approach allows them to deploy entire application stacks with a single click, enabling consistency from the datacenter to the cloud.

Measuring success

For VyStar, automation is a financial and strategic pillar as much as a technical one. To help ensure the platform continues to deliver value as the organization grows, VyStar prioritizes return on investment (ROI) tracking and analytics. The company is currently undergoing an upgrade from version 2.4 to 2.6, a move that unlocks advanced dashboard analytics. This allows their IT leadership and architects to observe real-time adoption rates and track the success of every automated workflow.

With insights from the Ansible Automation Platform dashboard, VyStar gains a granular view of:

• Time and cost savings: Quantifying the thousands of hours reclaimed from manual network diagnostics.
• Performance metrics: Using drill-down capabilities to understand job volume and status, helping the team proactively address issues before they affect member services.
• Predictive planning: Analyzing current data to predict the potential savings of future automation projects, aligning every new initiative with the credit union's strategic goals.

Automating for the future

These use cases reflect an evolution in operations that goes beyond efficiency. By establishing a trusted automation supply chain, VyStar continues to strengthen their environment where security and compliance are consistently integrated into how work is executed.

This foundation positions VyStar to explore the next phase of automation: Event-Driven Ansible, part of Ansible Automation Platform, and AI-assisted content creation with automation intelligent assistant. Moving forward, VyStar plans to accelerate the use of automation intelligent assistant and integrate AI capabilities using Dynatrace and ServiceNow’s AIOps components. The goal is to create a unified, AI-driven automation process that maintains a trusted, resilient, and scalable platform that always keeps the member experience at the forefront.